Coping With A Pet's Death

Strip's Farewell To Farley Reflects Reality

''I have a heavy heart this week. I'm feeling weighted down; it's hard to get things done,'' said Lynn Johnston in a phone interview from her home in Ontario.

Johnston is the creator of the ''For Better or for Worse'' cartoon strip, which centers on the trials and tribulations of Elly Patterson and her family. Johnston introduced Farley into the family as a puppy 14 years ago. Today, after a weeklong melodrama in which Farley saved the Pattersons' toddler, April, from drowning, readers learn that the lovable English sheep dog is no more.

''I couldn't just have Farley disappear,'' Johnston said. ''I had to have something to celebrate life. He saves a life and loses his.''

Here's what happened, for those who don't follow the strip: April fell into a rain-swollen ravine while playing with a toy boat. Farley and his young son, Edgar, were with her. Farley jumped in and kept the girl's head above water while Edgar - Lassie-like - ran off to alert her parents.

John, assisted by his wife, Elly, pulled April out of the water while older daughter Elizabeth pulled out Farley. April made it safe and sound. Farley, exhausted by his heroic effort, didn't. In Thursday's strip, Elizabeth told her father that Farley wasn't breathing. Today, John, back from the vet, gives Elly the bad news.

Johnston has been preparing for this day for the past two years, putting off what she knew was inevitable. The characters in her strip age - just like in real life - and as a former English sheep dog owner she knew that dogs of the breed rarely live more than 12 or 13 years.

''The fact he lived to age 14 is enough to suggest he was past his prime,'' Johnston said. As a result, she has been showing less and less of Farley in the strip while introducing readers to Farley's progeny, Edgar.

''I'm still getting letters that Farley should have been neutered and not had a puppy. I believe pets should be spayed and neutered, but for my purposes I needed a puppy, and he needed to look like Farley.''

Johnston knows she is stirring up trouble by killing off such a lovable character. It's not the first time her popular strip - which runs in more than 1,000 newspapers worldwide, including The Orlando Sentinel - has caused controversy. She has tackled shoplifting, child abuse, and, in the most notorious case, homosexuality. Two years ago her strip was temporarily dropped from about 40 newspapers when a teen-age character revealed he was gay. (The Sentinel was not among them.)

Johnston said in interviews that the gay character was based on a brother-in-law who had revealed his homosexuality to her. There was no such personal experience behind Farley's demise, although Johnston did once have an English sheep dog named Farley.

''The real Farley didn't like kids at all. We had to send him away to someone with a farm who didn't have children. We never saw the end of Farley. He was a beautiful dog, but dumb.''

Then again, the cartoon Farley's death may be a prequel to a real-life experience. Johnston and her husband have a small spaniel who is 12 years old. ''We're all sort of dreading the loss of our dog. My daughter doesn't want to think about it. It's a sad subject for sure.''

While no papers have been reported to have suspended her strip this time around, distributor Universal Press Syndicate reported earlier this week it had already received about 60 complaint calls about Farley's impending death.

As Johnston sees it, she has done what she could by introducing Edgar, a Farley lookalike. And for parents concerned about how their children will react to Farley's passing, she has written a poignant strip for this Sunday in which father John comforts daughter April about Farley's death.